Chapter VIII: Notanda (8)

There has been a great change too in the habits of the Seniors. The tutors, as elsewhere, gave their lectures or rather lessons, consisting of translations by the class, with questions and answers, without form or ceremony in their own rooms. After an early dinner they would retire to an uncarpeted Common Room. There after wine long clay pipes were a regular indulgence. An evening walk or other interlude was succeeded by a hot supper at nine, and the evening finished with a rubber. Dr. Cotton in his time was singular in retiring to his rooms after Common Room without joining the whist and supper party. All these customs have dropped away with the barbers and knee-breeches of our fathers. The Latin form of Morning Prayers was abolished by an excess of reforming zeal, and the Statutes of the College are no longer recited in annual conclave. Ordinances have succeeded statutes, and statutes succeeded ordinances. One ancient custom lingers on--the Porter still makes his morning rounds, and hammers upon the door of each staircase with a wooden mallet. This is a Benedictine usage, an echo of the thirteenth century continuing to haunt the old Benedictine walls.

XX.

HERTFORD COLLEGE.[347]

BY THE REV. H. RASHDALL, M.A., FELLOW OF HERTFORD.

Although Hertford is the youngest College of the University, it stands close to the very centre of the University’s most ancient home, on a site which has been the scene of Academical life from the earliest times. What the Oxford Local Board has chosen to call S. Catherine’s Street, has been known from the earliest times onwards as “Catte-Street” (Vicus Murilegorum). Lying just outside School Street, the scene of the Arts lectures, Cat Street was in the twelfth century the especial home of the Writers, Bookbinders, Parchment-makers, and Illuminers, for whose wares the growth of the University had created a demand. In the following century, it was partly occupied by University Halls or Hospices. At least four were comprised within the limits of the present College: Cat Hall, near the present Principal’s Lodgings; Black Hall, at the corner of New College Lane; Hart Hall, and Arthur Hall, the two latter occupying the Library corner of the Quadrangle. Hart Hall eventually swallowed up all its neighbours as well as the ground between them. The history of this process want of space forbids me to trace. I must confine myself to the Hall which has given its name to the present College.

_Hart Hall_, 1280(?)-1740.

The house is first known to have been a residence for scholars when it had passed into the possession of one Elias de Hertford, from whom it got its name of Hert Hall (_Aula Cervina_). This was between 1261 and 1284. A Hall was then simply a boarding-house, hired by a party of students as a residence. One of them, called a Principal, paid the rent and collected the amount from the rest. From the first the Principal possessed a certain authority, but it was not necessary that he should be a Master or even a Graduate. Eventually the University required that he should be a Graduate, and a new Principal had to be admitted by the Chancellor. When, after the Reformation, the Colleges absorbed the greater part of the now greatly reduced Academic population, most of the old Halls disappeared and no new ones were created. Hence the few that remained divided the monopoly of University education with the Colleges, and their Principalships became not unimportant pieces of patronage, which after a long struggle the Chancellor succeeded in appropriating to himself, except in the case of S. Edmund Hall. To a very late period, however, there remained traces of the old democratic _régime_, under which the students claimed the right to elect their own Principal, that is to say, to consent to the transfer of the house by the landlord from one Principal to another. Since, prior to the Laudian statutes, there was nothing to prevent a scholar freely transferring himself from one Principal to another, the necessity of their acceptance of the landlord’s new tenant is obvious. Even after the right of the Chancellor to nominate was fairly acknowledged, it was considered necessary that the students (graduate and undergraduate) should be solemnly assembled in the Hall and required to elect the Chancellor’s nominee, a formality which at Hart Hall lasted as long as the Hall itself. The present Fellows of Hertford enjoy less autonomy than the ancient students, and the Chancellor still enjoys an absolute right to appoint the Principal.

In 1312 the Hall, after some intermediate transfers, passed to Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter. For some years before the acquisition of their present site, it was the habitation of the Rector and Scholars of Stapeldon Hall, now known as Exeter College. After this, Hart Hall continued to belong to them and was let to a Principal, usually one of their own Fellows. The rent varied from time to time till 1665, after which a fixed sum of £1 13_s._ 4_d._ continued to be paid, and it became a question whether prescription had not extinguished any further rights on the part of the College.

Among the “Principals” appear the first three Wardens of New College, Richard de Tonworthe (1378), Nicolas de Wykeham (1381), and Thomas de Cranleigh, afterwards Archbishop of Dublin (1384).[348] During these years (probably 1375-1385) Hart and Black Halls were occupied by William of Wykeham’s New College, while their own buildings were in course of erection. There is, indeed, in the New College book of “Evidences” what purports to be a conveyance (dated 1379) of Hart Hall to William of Wykeham, under a quit-rent, by the Prioress and Convent of Studley. But from the documents of Exeter College it is clear that the “capital lords” in actual possession were the Prior and Convent of S. Frideswyde’s.[349] Hence it would seem that the astute Bishop of Winchester was outwitted for once by the Nuns of Studley (who were really proprietors of the adjoining Scheld Hall), and bought land with a bad title.[350] Nuns had a great reputation as women of business.

Later on the Hall was tenanted by a body of scholars supported by Glastonbury Abbey. At the dissolution a pension of £16 13_s._ 4_d._ was paid for the support of five scholars to Hart Hall, or rather to the University on its behalf. The amount was at first a rent-charge payable, but not always paid, by the grantee of certain Abbey lands. At the Restoration these lands were resumed by the Crown. The pension was still paid at the end of the last century, but has now disappeared.

The most distinguished man who can be fairly claimed as an _alumnus_ of Hart Hall is the learned Selden (1600-1603), then “a long scabby-pol’d boy but a good student.” Ken, the saintly Bishop of Bath and Wells, was apparently a member of the Hall for a few months while waiting for a vacancy at New College. Sir Henry Wotton, one of the seventeenth century worthies immortalized by Izaac Walton, resided here, though it would seem that he was not a member of the Hall but a Gentleman-Commoner of New College.

Richard Newton was born in the year 1675 or 1676, being a son of the squire of Laundon, Bucks, a moderate estate to which he eventually succeeded. He came up to Christ Church as a Westminster Student in 1694. After being for a time a Tutor of that House, he became tutor to the two Pelhams, the future Duke of Newcastle and his brother. In 1704 he was presented to the Rectory of Sudbury, Northants, by Bp. Compton. He was admitted Principal of Hart Hall, and took his D.D. in 1710, continuing to hold Sudbury. He made his mark as a preacher; and a number of pamphlets testify to his zeal as a University Reformer. In 1726 he wrote against an undoubted abuse, the evasion of the statute against unauthorized migration, though it must be admitted that his zeal on that occasion was stimulated by a recent desertion from his own Hall. Another of his pamphlets is on the perennial subject of University expensiveness. It is clear that in his own Hall he attempted to practise what he preached. In the pamphlets against him there are sneers against “a regimen of small-beer and apple-dumplings”--which (it is possible) had something to do with the frequent migrations of which the Doctor had to complain, though we are told that in one case the attraction was a Balliol Scholarship, and in another the “fine garden” of Trinity which the deserter “hoped would be to the advantage of his health.” Eventually he even stopped the small-beer, holding that (as he explains) more beer was drunk when it was got both in the Hall and out of it than when it could only be obtained outside. Newton was the “active” Head of his day, the “Monarch of Hart Hall” as the scoffers put it. He had pupils to travel or stay with him in “the Long,” usually “young gentlemen of fortune” in his College. He lamented the indolence and inactivity, and was pained to observe “the secular views and ambitious schemes” of other Heads. He held what was then accounted the eccentric opinion that “a gentleman-Commoner has a soul to be saved as well as a servitor, and is under the same obligations to religion and virtue.” In confidential moments he would declare himself in favour of “Common-sense and Reason in matters of Religion”; and he appears to have practised a somewhat latitudinarian mode of meditation. “He[351] would, a little before bed-time, desire his young friends to indulge him in a short vacation of about half-an-hour for his own private recollections. During that little interval they were silent, and he would smoke his pipe with great composure, and then chat with them again in a useful manner for a short space, and, bidding them good night, go to his rest.” When resident on his living, he had daily service at seven p.m. He was a Church Reformer as well as a University Reformer, and wrote on “Pluralities Indefensible.” After his call to Oxford, he held his living as an absentee, but “never pocketed a farthing of the profits thereof”; and eventually succeeded in resigning in favour of his curate. Altogether the life of Dr. Newton exhibits an example of independence, honesty, and disinterestedness, rare indeed among the Churchmen of his time. Pelham gave it as his only reason for not preferring his old tutor, that he could not do it “because he never asked me.” A man whom Pelham actually employed to write King’s Speeches for him might certainly have been a Bishop for the asking. It was only in the year before his death (1752) that he got a Canonry at Christ Church.

_Hertford College_, 1740-1816.

Newton had one ambition, and that was a disinterested one. “Dr. Newton is commonly said to be Founder-mad,” wrote the malicious Hearne; “Dr. Newton is very fond of founding a College,” wrote another, in 1721. The patronage which he would not stoop to ask for himself, he sought to use for his College. But his grand friends did little for him; nearly all that he spent came out of his own pocket. He spent about £1500 on building a Chapel for the Hall (consecrated in 1716) and the adjoining corner of the present Quadrangle. He published an edition of Theophrastus by subscription for the benefit of his College, but it did not appear till after his death. His proposals for the foundation of a College were made public in 1734 in a Letter to the Vice-Chancellor, though he had already “made a noise” about it “many years.” Considering the slenderness of the means at his disposal, it is not surprising that the project encountered some ridicule. Hearne had at first been much impressed by the Doctor’s sermons, and styled him “an ingenious honest man,” but on the appearance of his pamphlet on migration pronounced him “quite mad with pride and conceit,” and the book a “very weak, silly performance.” Now he laments that “’tis pitty Charities and Benefactions should be discountenanced and obstructed; but it sometimes happens when the persons that make them are supposed to be _mente capti_ and aim at things in the settlement which are ridiculous, which seems to be the case at Hart Hall, as ’tis represented to me. However, after all,” the charitable critic concludes, “’tis better not to publish the failings of persons, especially of clergymen, on such occasions, least mischief follow, the enemy being always ready to take advantage.” The grant of the charter was long opposed by Exeter College: but the opinion of the Attorney-General was unfavourable to the claim on the part of that College to anything but the accustomed rent. In 1740 Dr. Newton got his Charter of Incorporation, and his Statutes approved by George II.

Dr. Newton was not at all disposed to lose by his elevation to the Headship of a College the autocracy which he had so long enjoyed as Head of a Hall. Hence, although he styles the four Tutors of the new Foundation “Senior Fellows” and their eight “Assistants” “Junior Fellows,” the whole government of the College seems to be ultimately vested in the Principal, who was to be a Westminster student and Tutor of Christ Church nominated by the Dean of that House. There were to be no “idle fellowships” on Newton’s foundation: all were “official,” and lasted, the Senior Fellowships till the completion of eighteen years from Matriculation, the Junior only from B.A. to M.A. The College was designed for thirty-two “Students,” who enjoyed a modest endowment of £6 13_s._ 4_d._ for the first year and £13 6_s._ 8_d._ for four years more, with commons. There were also four “Scholars” who were to act as Servitors to the four Tutors, and to perform such functions as ringing the bell and keeping the gate. Commoners and Gentleman-Commoners were expressly excluded: but wealthier men might become honorary Scholars, with leave to wear a “tuft” as well as the Scholar’s gown. Each Tutor was to take charge of the freshmen of one year, who remained his pupils throughout their course. This division of the College into four classes must have been suggested by the Scotch University system, or by the arrangement of the French Colleges on which the Scotch system was based. It was, at all events, vastly superior to the old “Tutorial system,” under which every Tutor played the polymathic Professor to Undergraduates of every year simultaneously.

Dr. Newton’s Statutes are very curious reading. He aimed at perpetuating the “system of education” which he had himself introduced. They are full of wise provisions, some of them rather crotchety, and others excellent in themselves but perhaps hardly practicable even then. Each Tutor lived in a different “Angle” of the Quadrangle, and was responsible for its discipline. His post must have been no sinecure, if he was really to keep men out of each others’ rooms during the hours of work, from Chapel (6.30 or 7.30 a.m. according to season) till the 12 o’clock dinner, and from 2 to 6 p.m. Supper was at 7 instead of the usual 6 p.m., to limit the time available for compotations. The gate was shut at 9 p.m., and after 10 the key was to be taken to the Principal’s bed-room and no egress or ingress permitted. As an “educationist,” the Founder apparently believed in Disputations and insisted much on English composition, but disbelieved in verse-making except for “Undergraduates having a genius for Poetry.” The sumptuary regulations are somewhat severe, including the requirement that no bills shall be “contracted without their Tutor’s knowledge and consent.” Allowances from parents were to be sent to the Tutor, who was to pay his pupils’ debts before transmitting the remainder to their destination. “Dismission” was the penalty for contracting a debt of more than 5_s._ “with any person keeping a Coffee-house or Cook’s-shop or any other Public House whatsoever.”

Newton’s first two successors were men of mark in their day. William Sharp (1753-1757) was Regius Professor of Greek. David Durell (1757-1775) was eminent as a Hebraist. But the Principalship depended for its endowments entirely upon room-rent, and the Studentships could never have been really paid out of Newton’s slender endowment of less than £60 _per annum_. The existence of the College depended upon the reputation of its Tutors. During the Tutorship[352] of Newcome, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, the College was still prosperous. His “pupils were for the most part men of family,” says Sir George Trevelyan; among them, Charles James Fox (1764-1765). For a Gentleman-Commoner (Dr. Newton’s Statutes were defied) Fox read hard, and found Mathematics “entertaining.” “Application like yours,” the Tutor found it necessary to write to him, “requires some intermission, and you are the only person with whom I have ever had any connexion, in whom I could say this.” He read so hard in fact, that his father, Lord Holland, sent him abroad without taking his degree, to the no small injury of his mind and character. It appears, however, that Fox’s life had a lighter side even while at Oxford. In Lockhart’s story of Reginald Dalton, we read: “Although Hart Hall has disappeared, we trust the authorities have preserved the window from whence the illustrious C. J. Fox made the memorable leap when determined to join his companions in a Town and Gown row.” Alas! the window has disappeared not only from the world of reality but (what does not always follow) from that of tradition!

It was in the time of the fourth Principal, Dr. Bernard Hodgson, that the College collapsed. On his death in 1805 no one would accept the almost honorary headship; but at last in 1814 the one surviving Fellow,[353] who was (we are told) considered “half-cracked,” announced that he had “nominated, constituted, and admitted himself Principal”! At this time the place was all but deserted. It became a sort of no man’s land in which a score of “strange characters” (“as if being ‘half-cracked’ were a qualification for admission”) squatted rent free. Eventually the University took upon itself to close the building. In 1820 the building adjoining Cat Street actually fell down “with a great crash and a dense cloud of dust.”

_Magdalen Hall_ (on this site), 1820-1874.

On January 9th, 1820, a fire deprived Magdalen Hall of its local habitation.[354] The old Hall stood upon the site of the existing S. Swithin’s buildings, and belonged to the College from which it took its name. In 1816 the President and Fellows had procured an Act of Parliament transferring the site and buildings of Hertford Society to Magdalen Hall, _i. e._ technically, to the University in trust for the Hall. With part of the small property of the College, the Hertford Scholarship was founded: the rest passed to the Society of Magdalen Hall, which in 1822 took possession of its new home. A word must be said as to the traditions of which Hertford College thus became the inheritor.

About the year 1480 the Founder of Magdalen College built some rooms near the gate of his College for the accommodation of the officers of his Grammar School. To these other rooms were added, and the building occupied by students and called S. Mary Magdalen Hall. This Society had at first the closest connection with the College, the Principal being always a Fellow. It was not till 1694 that the Chancellor of the University finally established his right to nominate the Principal of Magdalen Hall.

It was in this Hall that the Ultra-Protestant traditions of Magdalen lingered after they had died out in the College itself. It had been within the walls of Magdalen Hall that the English Reformation had its true beginning in certain meetings for Bible-reading started by William Tyndale, afterwards the translator of the Bible; and in the seventeenth century, when the Laudian movement had got the upper hand in the Colleges at large, it became a refuge for the oppressed Puritans. At one time it boasted three hundred members. In 1631 its Principal John Wilkinson, and Prideaux, Rector of Exeter, were summoned before the King in Council at Woodstock and received “a publick and sharp reprehension for their misgoverning and countenancing the factious partie!” Soon after, Oxenbridge, one of its Tutors,[355] was convicted of a “strange, singular, and superstitious way of dealing with his Scholars by perswading and causing some of them to subscribe as votaries to several articles framed by himself (as he pretends, for their better government),” for which presumption he was “distutored.” In 1640 Henry Wilkinson (also of the Hall) was suspended for preaching in a very bitter way against some of the ceremonies of the Church.[356] But the day of vengeance came. When the Parliamentary Visitors came to Oxford the suspended Tutor, Henry Wilkinson, senior, commonly known as “Long Harry,” was the most prominent and zealous of the Visitors. The students of Magdalen Hall and New Inn submitted to a man, and the places of the ejected Fellows and Scholars were largely recruited from their numbers. A very large proportion of the eminent Puritans of the seventeenth century came from these two Halls. A few of the distinguished Magdalen Hall men, whom Hertford College now claims as a sort of step-mother, may be added. John L’Isle, President of the High Court of Justice; John Glynne, Lord Chief Justice of England under Cromwell; William Waller, the Cromwellian Poet (afterwards at Hart Hall); Sir Matthew Hale, the most famous of English Judges; Sydenham, “the English Hippocrates”; Sir Henry Vane; Pococke, the Orientalist; and Dr. John Wilkins, the Mathematician, afterwards Warden of Wadham, then Master of Trin. Coll. Cambr., and later Bishop of Chester. Few Colleges in the University ever sent out so many distinguished men within so short a time. But the greatest name that Magdalen Hall can boast figures oddly in this list of Puritan Worthies. Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury entered when not quite fifteen in 1603, and went down in 1607 with the B.A. degree. It is curious that it should have been by the Puritan Principal, John Wilkinson, that the Philosopher of Erastian Absolutism was introduced as tutor or companion into the Devonshire family with which he remained connected for the rest of his life. In spite of the Puritan _régime_, which was, however, hardly established in his day, Hobbes describes the place of his education as one “where the young were addicted to drunkenness, wantonness, gaming, and other vices.” Clarendon was also a member of the Hall for a short time while waiting for a Demyship at Magdalen College. Swift, whose Undergraduate life was passed at Dublin, took his Oxford B.A. from Magdalen Hall in 1692, and proceeded M.A. a few weeks later, during which interval we may perhaps assume that he resided in the Hall.

_Hertford College, founded 1874._

The last of the many vicissitudes which this venerable site has experienced remains to be recorded. In 1874 the defunct Hertford College was recalled to life by the munificence of Mr. T. C. Baring, M.P., who endowed it with seventeen Fellowships, and thirty Scholarships of £100 per annum, limited to members of the Church of England.[357] An Act of Parliament gave the new foundation “all such rights and privileges as are possessed or enjoyed or can be exercised by other Colleges in the University of Oxford;” and Dr. Richard Michell, the last Principal of Magdalen Hall, became the first Principal of the present Hertford College.

While future ages will feel towards the name of Baring all the loyalty that is a Founders due, it is a fortunate circumstance that the accidents which have been related enabled him to give to his new foundation the only thing which money could not buy--a slight flavour of antiquity. The existing foundation is substantially the creation of Mr. Baring, but enough remains of its predecessors--the Elizabethan hall now transformed into a Library, the Jacobean Common-rooms which represent the pre-Newtonian Hart Hall, Newton’s Chapel with the adjoining “angle,” the plate and pictures of Magdalen Hall and its ten Scholarships[358]--to give us a link with the past, a not uninteresting past, of which, however glorious its future, the College need never be ashamed. In one sense, notwithstanding the newness of its foundation, the College belongs to the past more than its more venerable sisters. It is untouched by recent legislation, its Statutes are constructed upon the old model, and it still rejoices in Fellowships which are tenable during life and celibacy.

XXI.

KEBLE COLLEGE.

BY REV. WALTER LOCK, M.A., SUB-WARDEN OF KEBLE COLLEGE.

This, the most recent of the Oxford colleges, was opened in 1870, the foundation of it being due to a combination of three different but cognate causes: the first was a widespread desire to make University education more widely accessible to the nation, and especially to those who were anxious to take Holy Orders in the Church of England; the second, the desire to ensure that this education should be in the hands of Churchmen; and the third, the desire to perpetuate the memory of the Rev. John Keble, formerly Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, Professor of Poetry in the University (1832-1841), Vicar of Hursley (1836-1866), and author of _The Christian Year_, _Lyra Innocentium_, _A Treatise on Eucharistical Adoration_, &c.

Of these motives the first had been stirring in Oxford for many years. In 1845 the following address was presented to the Hebdomadal Board--

“Considerable efforts have lately been made in this country for the diffusion of civil and spiritual knowledge, whether at home or abroad. Schools have been instituted for the lower and middle classes, churches built and endowed, missionary societies established, further Schools founded, as at Marlborough and Fleetwood, for the sons of poor clergy and others; and, again, associations for the provision of additional Ministers. But between these schools on the one hand, and on the other the ministry which requires to be augmented, there is a chasm which needs to be filled. Our Universities take up education where our schools leave it; yet no one can say that they have been strengthened or extended, whether for Clergy or Laity, in proportion to the growing population of the country, its increasing empire, or deepening responsibilities.

“We are anxious to suggest, that the link which we find thus missing in the chain of improvement should be supplied by rendering Academical education accessible to the sons of parents whose incomes are too narrow for the scale of expenditure at present prevailing among the junior members of the University of Oxford, and that this should be done through the addition of new departments to existing Colleges, or, if necessary, by the foundation of new Collegiate bodies. We have learned, on what we consider unquestionable information, that in such institutions, if the furniture were provided by the College, and public meals alone were permitted, to the entire exclusion of private entertainments in the rooms of the Students, the annual College payments for board, lodging, and tuition might be reduced to £60 at most; and that if frugality were enforced as the condition of membership, the Student’s entire expenditure might be brought within the compass of £80 yearly.

“If such a plan of improvement be entertained by the authorities of Oxford, the details of its execution would remain to be considered. On these we do not venture to enter; but desire to record our readiness, whenever the matter may proceed further, to aid, by personal exertions or pecuniary contributions, in the promotion of a design which the exigencies of the country so clearly seem to require.

“Sandon, Ashley, R. Grosvenor, W. Gladstone, T. D. Acland, Philip Pusey, T. Sothron, Westminster, Carnarvon, T. Acland, Bart., W. Bramston, Lincoln, Sidney Herbert, Canning, Mahon, W. B. Baring, J. Nicholl (Judge Advocate), W. T. James, S. R. Glynne, J. E. Denison, Wilson Patten, R. Vernon Smith, S. Wilberforce, R. Jelf, W. W. Hall, W. Heathcote, Edward Berens, J. Wooley, Hon. Horace Powys, W. Herbert (Dean of Manchester), G. Moberley, A. C. Tait.”[359]

In spite of this influential list of signatures no action was taken by the Board, but the subject gave rise to many pamphlets, one of which, by the Rev. C. Marriott, deserves a special notice. In it he propounded a definite scheme for the foundation of a college either in or out of Oxford, which should contain about one hundred students living “a somewhat domestic kind of life,” which should be shared in close intercourse by their tutors. Mr. Marriott received considerable promises of help towards the endowment of such a college, but his early death cut short the scheme.[360] The University Commission of 1854 tended to stimulate the desire to make University education more national; but it was not until 1865 that any definite step was taken. On Nov. 16 of that year a meeting of graduates was held at Oriel College, “to consider the question of University Extension with a view especially to the education of persons needing assistance and desirous of admission into the Christian ministry.” The conveners of this meeting were chiefly influenced by the belief that the education of the national clergy was the unquestionable duty of the Universities, but that it was to a large extent passing out of their hands. They recognized, however, that this was far from the sole ground of University Extension, and especially urged that the system of Local Examinations required as its natural complement some further movement which should enable the successful candidates to follow out their studies at the University itself. At this meeting six sub-committees were formed to consider various methods of such extension. The history of Keble College is concerned only with the first of these, of which Dr. Shirley, the Professor of Ecclesiastical History, was Chairman, the other members being Professors Bernard, Burrows, Mansel, Pusey, and the Revs. W. Burgon, R. Greswell, W. Ince, and J. Riddell.

The instructions given to them were to consider the suggestion of extending the University “by founding a college or hall on a large scale, with a view not exclusively but especially to the education of persons needing assistance and desirous of admission into the Christian ministry.” The substance of the report was to the effect that, without interfering with either the moral and religious discipline or the social advantages of an academical life, it would be possible very considerably to reduce the average of expenditure. With this purpose they suggest the building of a new Hall, by private subscription, large enough to hold one hundred undergraduates; for the sake of economy the rooms should be smaller than in most colleges, they should be arranged along corridors instead of by staircases, and be furnished by the College; breakfast as well as dinner should be taken in common, caution-money and entrance fees abolished, and all necessary expenditure included in one terminal payment. By this means it was hoped that the University would be opened to a class of men who cannot now enter, but without placing them apart from the classes who now avail themselves of it. The Hall was not to be “such an eleemosynary establishment as would be sought only by persons of inferior social position, less cultivated manners, or of attainments and intellect below the ordinary level of the University, but rather one which is adapted to the natural tastes and habits of gentlemen wishing to live economically.”[361]

In the following year (on March 16, 1866) the Rev. John Keble died, and on the day of his funeral it seemed to his friends that the most fitting memorial to him would be to build such a college as had been contemplated by this committee. Mr. Keble had himself joined in the movement which led to the appointment of the committee; he had seen and approved the Report. This report was accordingly taken as the basis of action. The details were, in the main, arranged upon its lines; perhaps the chief difference was that from the first the preparation of candidates for Holy Orders was less insisted upon, and more emphasis was laid upon the duty of providing a suitable education for all Churchmen, whatever their vocation might be. To quote the words of the appeal which was issued, “The College was intended first to be a heartfelt and national tribute of affection and admiration to the memory of one of the most eminent and religious writers whom the Church of England has ever produced, one whose holy example was perhaps even a greater power for good than his _Christian Year_; secondly, to meet the great need now so generally felt of some form of University Extension, which may include a large portion of persons at present debarred through want of means from its full benefits; while, thirdly, it is hoped that it will prove, by God’s blessing, the loyal handmaid of our mother Church, to train up men who, not in the ministry only but in the manifold callings of the Christian life, shall be steadfast in the faith.”[362] The aims of the promoters of Keble College were, in a word, exactly the same as those of the munificent founders of the earlier colleges, viz. to extend University education to those who could not otherwise enjoy it, to extend it in the form of collegiate life, and in loyalty to the English Church.

A public appeal for subscriptions was at once made, and these amounted in a very short time to more than £50,000. The building of the College was intrusted to Mr. Butterfield. On St. Mark’s Day (the anniversary of Mr. Keble’s birthday), 1868, the first stone was laid by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Longley); and rooms for one hundred undergraduates and six tutors were ready for occupation in 1870, and at Commemoration the first Warden, the Rev. E. S. Talbot, senior student of Christ Church, was formally installed by the Chancellor of the University. A council had already been elected by the subscribers: this constitutes the Governing Body of the College, and perpetuates itself by co-optation as vacancies arise. The Council elect the Warden, who nominates the Tutors. On June 6th a Royal Charter of Incorporation was granted. This, after reciting that the subscribers had joined together to give public and permanent expression to their feeling of deep gratitude for the long and devoted services of the Rev. John Keble to the Church of Christ, and with that intent had resolved to establish a college or institution in which young men now debarred from University education might be trained in simple and religious habits, according to the principles of the Church of England, created the Warden, Council, and scholars into a corporate body with power to hold lands not exceeding the value of five thousand pounds (A subsequent amendment of the Mortmain Act, passed by Parliament in August 1888, extended to Keble College the exemption of the Mortmain Act, by which persons are enabled to bequeath property to it.) This Royal Charter carried with it no academical privileges. It left the Council free to move the College elsewhere, or even to wind up the Corporation; at the same time it authorized them, if they saw fit, to obtain the incorporation of the College within the University of Oxford.

This was not, however, the course actually adopted; the question of formal incorporation was not free from difficulties, as in previous cases such incorporation had been generally effected either by Royal Charter or by an Act of Parliament, and so it has never been raised. What actually happened was as follows. On June 16th, 1870, a decree was passed by Convocation, authorizing the Vice-Chancellor to matriculate students from Keble College pending further legislation. On March 9th, 1871, a new statute dealing with New Foundations for Academical Study and Education was passed, and on April 8th Keble College was admitted to the privileges granted by it. By this statute all its members have in relation to the University the same privileges and obligations as if they had been admitted to one of the previously existing Colleges or Halls, and the Warden has with regard to the members of his society the same obligations, rights, and powers as are assigned to the heads of existing Colleges or Halls, though the statute does not impose upon him any other obligations or confer any other right, privilege, or distinction. Any other statutes in which Colleges are mentioned by name, such as those respecting the University sermons or the election of Proctors, would not apply to any such new foundations, unless so amended as to include them expressly. The statute affecting the Proctorial cycle was so amended in 1887, and Keble College was for that purpose placed on a level with other colleges. The further question whether the head of such a society possesses the rights possessed by the heads of the earlier colleges has never been decided.[363]

Meanwhile the College had been opened successfully in Michaelmas Term 1870. At that time the north, east, and west blocks were completed, with a temporary chapel and hall on the south. The rooms were arranged in corridors, but subsequent experience has since partly modified this arrangement. The quadrangle south of the gateway was commenced in 1873, and finished on the eastern side in 1875, on the western in 1882. In 1873 W. Gibbs, Esq., of Tynterfield, laid the foundation of the permanent Chapel, of which he was the sole and munificent donor. This was formally opened on St. Mark’s Day, 1876, and on the same day the foundation-stone of the Hall and Library was laid, these being the scarcely less munificent gifts of his sons, Messrs. Antony and Martin Gibbs. The architect of these buildings also was Mr. Butterfield. In the Chapel, the general aim of the decoration is to set forth the Christ as the sum and centre of all history, to whom all previous ages pointed, from whom all subsequent ages have drawn their inspiration. In the main body of the Chapel the mosaics represent typical scenes from the lives of Noah, Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, while the great prophets and kings of the Old Testament are portrayed in the windows. Around the Sanctuary the ornament is richer as it attempts to do honour to the fact of the Incarnation--alabaster and marble take the place of stone. On either side in the mosaics are seen the Annunciation, the Birth, the Baptism, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection of the Lord; in the windows the leading Apostles and Doctors of the Christian Church. The Ascension is given in the east window; while in the quatre-foil mosaic, the centre of the whole decoration, appears a vision of the Lord Himself as described by St. John in the Apocalypse, seated in the midst of the candlesticks, with the stars in His hand, and the sword coming out of His mouth. Around the Living Lord are grouped saints of all the Christian centuries and of every vocation in life. The western mosaic closes the series with the Last Judgment.

In one respect the arrangement differs from that of all the other College chapels--all the seats are ranged eastwards, not north and south. This results from the change which has passed over college life in Oxford. The earlier chapels were built for colleges in which every one was in theory a life-member on the foundation, and had his permanent seat as in a cathedral body; but a modern college chapel, containing almost exclusively a large passing congregation of undergraduates, presents conditions much more like that of an ordinary church, and alike for purposes of worship and of preaching it seemed better that the whole body should face eastward in the usual manner. It should also be mentioned that the chapel has not been formally consecrated, it being a question whether such consecration might not limit the powers conferred upon the Council by the Charter.

The Hall and Library were formally opened in 1878, Mr. Gladstone being among the speakers on the occasion. Since then the Hall has been enriched with a beautiful oil painting of the Rev. J. Keble, painted by G. Richmond after Mr. Keble’s death from a crayon drawing which he had made in his lifetime; by portraits of Archbishop Longley, who laid the foundation stone of the College; of Dr. Shirley, Chairman of the Committee on whose report the College was based; of Earl Beauchamp, the senior member of the Council, from the first one of the most strenuous and munificent friends of the College; of the Rev. E. S. Talbot, the first Warden (1870-1888); of W. Gibbs, Esq., the donor of the Chapel; and of J. A. Shaw Stewart, Esq., the treasurer of the original Memorial Fund and resident Bursar of the College (1876-1880). To these is to be added soon a portrait of Dr. Liddon, member of the Council (1870-1890), and of the Rev. Aubrey L. Moore, Tutor (1881-1890). In addition to these, all of which are connected with the College history, Earl Beauchamp has presented a portrait of Archbishop Laud.

In the Library the nucleus of the collection was formed by the gift of the majority of Mr. Keble’s own books and many of his MSS., presented mainly by his brother, partly also by his nephew. Among these are the original drafts of the _Lyra Innocentium_ and many of the _Miscellaneous Poems_ (written on stray scraps of paper or on backs of envelopes), of the _Eucharistical Adoration_, the sermons on Baptism, and the translation of St. Irenæus; and, most interesting of all, a fair copy made by himself of the greater part of the _Christian Year_, written in an exquisitely clear and delicate hand in seven small note-books. Other relics of Mr. Keble, including his study-table and the candelabrum presented to him by his pupils on leaving Oxford, are preserved in the common room. The Library has also received large donations or legacies of books from Cardinal Newman, Archbishop Trench, Lord Richard Cavendish, Miss Yonge, &c. Quite recently there has been added to it Dr. Liddon’s library, rich especially in historical, liturgical, and theological books, and containing also an excellent collection of Dante literature. Mr. Holman Hunt’s picture, _The Light of the World_, presented by Mrs. Combe of the University Press, at present hangs in the Library, though it will probably be ultimately transferred to the chapel.

Of the history of the internal working of the College there is little to say. From the opening till the present its rooms have always been full; and clear proof has thus been given of the reality of the demand for University extension on such a plan. The annual charge to each undergraduate is £82 a year, which includes tuition, board, and rent of furnished rooms; groceries, wines, &c. have been supplied from the College stores; and a special common room is open to undergraduates, serving both for entertainment and as a reading-room. Two of those who have worked as tutors in the College have already been raised to the Episcopate--Dr. Mylne, the Senior Tutor in the first years of the College, now Bishop of Bombay, and Dr. Jayne, now Bishop of Chester.

In academical distinction the College has quite held its own with many of the older Colleges, and has specially gained distinction in the Honour Schools of Theology, Modern History, and Natural Science. Several private benefactions, notably those of Miss Wilbraham (1872), Mrs. William Gibbs (1875), A. J. Balfour, Esq., M.P. (1875), Lady Gomm (1878), Miss Chafyn Grove (1879), H. O. Wakeman, Esq. (1882), and a subscription raised to found a “Caroline Talbot” Scholarship in memory of the first Warden’s mother, have enabled the College to offer several scholarships for open competition to members of the Church of England, or to aid those who are already members of the College to complete their career. There are also special prizes to encourage the study of theology, such as the Wills and Phillpott’s prizes for undergraduates, the Liddon prize, and the “Edward Talbot” studentship, founded to commemorate the services of the first Warden, for graduates; but these are all the endowments that the College has, and they are not sufficient to enable it to compete on equal terms with the other colleges in the offer of scholarships.

The College has also received many advowsons, and is likely to do useful service to the Church of England as patron of livings.

FOOTNOTES

[1] From the old printed copy in Bodl. Bibl. MSS. Tanner 338, fol. 216.

[2] _Annals of University College_, p. 339.

[3] I have used Mr. William Smith’s rendering of these passages of Matthew Paris.

[4] This, as Mr. William Smith says, to whose printed volume and MSS. preserved in the College archives, my obligations are so profuse that henceforth I will not mention them in detail, was the sum allowed to the Merton scholars also, and would in an ordinary year purchase twelve and a half quarters of the best wheat.

[5] This writ of King Richard is only entered on the back of the ancient roll containing the French Petition, and is not upon Record. (W. Smith’s _Annals_, p. 311.)

[6] Mr. Wm. Rogers of Gloucestershire, a member of the College. The speech spoken by Mr. Edw. Hales upon ye setting up of it was printed by Dr. Charlett. Mr. Hales was afterwards killed at ye Boyne in Ireland most couragiously fighting for his master King James. (Hearne by Doble, II. p. 143.)

[7] In the earlier part of this chapter I have been under constant obligations to the old College history entitled _Balliofergus, or, a Commentary upon the Foundation, Founders, and Affaires of Balliol Colledge, Gathered out of the Records thereof, and other Antiquities. With a brief Description of eminent Persons who have been formerly of the same House._ By Henry Savage, Master of the said Colledge (Oxford 1668). I am also considerably indebted to Mr. Maxwell Lyte’s _History of the University of Oxford_ (1886), and to the somewhat perfunctory and ill-informed account of the College muniments given by Mr. H. T. Riley in the appendix to the Fourth Report of the Historical Manuscripts Commission (1874). The Statutes of the College are cited from the edition prepared for the University Commission of 1850, and published in 1853. In dealing with later times I have had the advantage of a number of references kindly furnished me by Dr. G. B. Hill of Pembroke College, Mr. C. E. Doble of Worcester College, and Mr. C. H. Firth of Balliol College. Mr. Rashdall, of Hertford College, has been so good as to look over the proof-sheets of this chapter; and, although he is not to be held chargeable with any errors that may have escaped him, I have to thank him for many corrections and suggestions.

[8] The identification seems certain, though the name is suppressed in the _Chronicon de Lanercost_ (ed. J. Stevenson, 1839), p. 69.

[9] _Chron. de Mailros_, s. a. 1269.

[10] _Statutes of Balliol College_, pp. v.-vii.

[11] In this document we have for the first time the mention of the _Master_ and Scholars of the House: Savage, p. 18.

[12] See extracts from the deeds in Riley, p. 446.

[13] 13 July 1293: ibid., p. 443.

[14] See Savage, pp. 29 f.; Wood, _Hist. and Antiqq. of the Univ. of Oxford_ (ed. Gutch), _Colleges and Halls_, pp. 73, 86 f.

[15] In this document the head of the College is styled _Warden_ (Riley, p. 443), a title which occurs in 1303 (Wood, _Colleges and Halls_, p. 81), and which alternates with that of Master for some time later. _President_ occurs in 1559; _Statutes_, p. 25.

[16] Wood, _Hist. and Antiqq._ ii. 731-733.

[17] Ibid., pp. 774 f.

[18] Riley, pp. 442 f.; Wood, _Colleges and Halls_, p. 73.

[19] _English Historical Review_, vi. (1891) 152 f.

[20] _Dict. of Nat. Biogr._ xix. (1889) 194-198.

[21] _Statutes of Balliol College_, pp. viii-xix.

[22] It may be remarked that a grant of the year 1343 is noted by Savage, p. 52, as the first among the College muniments in which the name _Balliol_ is spelled with a single _l_.

[23] See the extract from a letter of the Rectors, one a Doctor of Divinity and the other a Franciscan, of 1433, given by Riley, p. 443 _a_.

[24] In 1433: Savage, pp. 64 f.

[25] In 1477: ibid., p. 66.

[26] _Statutes of Balliol College_, pp. 1-22; cf. Lyte, pp. 415 ff.

[27] The eightpence a-week assigned them by the Statutes of Dervorguilla had been raised to twelve pence so early as 1340, by Sir William Felton’s benefactions, which also provided funds for clothes and books (Savage, p. 38). It was now ordered that the sum should not exceed 1_s._ 8_d._ Besides this Masters were to receive an annual stipend of 20_s._ 8_d._; Bachelors, of 18_s._ 8_d._ (_Statutes_, p. 14).

[28] Compare Savage, p. 74.

[29] _Statutes_, pp. 38 f.

[30] _Queen’s College Statutes_, p. 14.

[31] We may remember that “between the years 1485 and 1507, Oxford was visited by at least six great pestilences” (Lyte, p. 380). In 1486 we find the Fellows of Magdalen sojourning at Witney and Harwell (not far from Wantage) “tempore pestis.” Rogers, _Hist. of Agric. and Prices_, iii. (1882) 680.

[32] See W. W. Shirley, _Fasciculi Zizaniorum_ (1858), intr., pp. xi-xv, 513-528; P. Lorimer, notes to Lechler’s _John Wiclif_ (ed. 1881), pp. 132-137; R. L. Poole, _Wycliffe and Movements for Reform_ (1889), pp. 61-65.

[33] _Dict. of Nat. Biogr._, xi. (1887) 157 f.

[34] Lyte, p. 321.

[35] W. D. Macray, _Ann. of the Bodl. Libr._ (2nd ed., 1890), pp. 6-11.

[36] _Comment. de Scriptt. Brit._ (ed. A. Hall, Oxford 1709), p. 442.

[37] _Scriptt. Brit. Catal._ (Basle 1557), viii. 2.

[38] Leland, p. 460.

[39] Wood, _Hist. and Antiqq. of the Univ. of Oxf., Colleges and Halls_, p. 89; who notices (vol. ii. 107) that though Balliol Library lost much in 1550, it also gained some of the spoils of Durham College at the time of its dissolution.

[40] The substance of the foregoing account is borrowed from the writer’s article on Grey in the _Dict. of Nat. Biogr._ xxiii. (1890) 212f.

[41] See, on the buildings and inscriptions, Savage, pp. 67-72, Wood, _Coll. and Halls_, pp. 90-98.

[42] Lyte, p. 326.

[43] Savage, pp. 105-108.

[44] Leland, pp. 475-481; Lyte, pp. 385 f.; _Briefwechsel des Beatus Rhenanus_ (ed. A. Horawitz & K. Hartfelder, 1886), p. 72.

[45] Lyte, p. 322.

[46] Nevill supplicated for his B.A. degree in 1450: Anstey, _Munim. Acad. Oxon._ (1868), p. 730 f.

[47] _Reg. of the Univ. of Oxford_, i. (ed. C. W. Boase, 1885) 1.

[48] Leland, pp. 466-468, 476; Lyte, pp. 384 f.

[49] Tanner, _Bibl. Brit. Hib._ (1748), p. 598; Le Neve’s _Fast. Eccl. Angl._ (ed. T. D. Hardy, Oxford 1854) i. 141.

[50] Leland, p. 462 f.

[51] _Dict. of Nat. Biogr._, xxiii. 351.

[52] Already by Anthony Wood’s time “the old accompts” were lost; “So A. W. was much put to a push, to find when learned men had been of that coll.” _Life_ (ed. Bliss, Eccl. Hist. Soc., Oxford 1848), p. 144. So too _Athen. Oxon._ (ed. Bliss) iii. 959.

[53] Savage, pp. 74-77; Wood’s _City of Oxford_, ed. A. Clark, ii. 3; P. Heylin’s _Cyprianus redivivus_ (1668), p. 208; Wood’s _Hist. and Antiqq._ (ed. Gutch), ii. 677.

[54] _Statutes_, p. 30.

[55] P. 33.

[56] P. 35.

[57] Savage, p. 56. After 1718 the payment was made out of the College revenues: _Statutes_, p. 36.

[58] _Statutes_, p. 31.

[59] Humphrey Prideaux, _Letters to John Ellis_ (ed. E. M. Thompson, Camden Society, 1875), pp. 12 f., under date 23 August 1674.

[60] _Statutes_, pp. 61-66.

[61] In 1677 the library was increased by the gift of “one of the best private librarys in England” (Prideaux, p. 61), from the bequest of Sir Thomas Wendy of Haselingfield, sometime gentleman commoner of the College. In 1673 these books were valued at £600: Wood, _Colleges and Halls_, p. 90.

[62] _Statutes_, pp. 25-28.

[63] Ibid., pp. 45-50.

[64] Savage, pp. 85-87.

[65] See Wood, _Colleges and Halls_, pp. 616-619.

[66] _Statutes_, pp. 40-45, 50-56. In 1676 the number was increased to two Fellows and two Scholars.

[67] Ibid., pp. 57-61. The endowment provided for the erection of lodgings for the Periam Fellow and Scholars, and the foundress’s name is still remembered in connection with one of the buildings of the College.

[68] The College benefactors, down to John Warner, are enumerated by Wood, _Colleges and Halls_, pp. 75-80.

[69] _Scotland and Scotsmen in the Eighteenth Century_, from the MSS. of John Ramsay of Ochtertyre (ed. A. Allardyce, 1888), ii. 307 note.

[70] See above, pp. 26 f., 37.

[71] Savage, p. 77; Wood, _Colleges and Halls_, p. 99.

[72] _Life_, p. 143.

[73] Savage, p. 68.

[74] See an account of them by the Rev. C. H. Grinling in the _Proceedings of the Oxf. Archit. and Hist. Society_, new series, iv. 137-140. The windows in their original situation are described by Savage, pp. 77 f., and Wood, _Coll. and Halls_, pp. 100-102.

[75] Wood’s _Coll. and Halls_, p. 88, and _City of Oxford_, ed. A. Clark, i. (1889) 634 note 8.

[76] Savage, pp. 61, 79-81; cf. Wood’s _City of Oxford_, i. 372.

[77] P. V[ernon], _Oxonium Poema_, 18.

[78] Wood, _Coll. and Halls_, p. 87, with Gutch’s note.

[79] See Wood, p. 99, and the plan in W. Williams’ _Oxonia Depicta_ [1732].

[80] _Reg. Univ._, i. (ed. Boase), pref., p. xxiii.

[81] _Reg. Univ._, ii. (ed. Clark) pt. ii. pp. 30, 31.

[82] Gutch, _Collect. curiosa_ (Oxford, 1781), i. 200.

[83] _Reg. Univ._, ii. pt. ii. 412.

[84] Wood, _Hist. and Antiqq._ ii. 365.